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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says a proposal to put Syria's chemical weapons under international control to avoid U.S. military strikes could be a potential breakthrough.

Obama told NBC News in an interview Monday that he remains skeptical that Syria will follow through and turn over its stockpile, so he's taking a statement from Damascus, quote, "with a grain of salt initially." But he says he would prefer to have a diplomatic solution to the crisis rather than launch a military attack, and called it "a potentially positive development."

Secretary of State John Kerry suggested earlier Monday that Syria could avoid a potential U.S. air attack by putting its chemical weapons under international control. Syria's ally Russia quickly took the idea to Syria's foreign minister, who said Damascus welcomes the proposal.

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MOSCOW — A seemingly offhand suggestion by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that Syria could avert a U.S. attack by relinquishing its chemical weapons received an almost immediate welcome from Syria, Russia, the United Nations, a key U.S. ally and even some Republicans on Monday as a possible way to avoid a major international military showdown in the Syria crisis. A White House official said the administration was taking a “hard look” at the idea.

While there was no indication that Kerry was searching for a political settlement to the Syrian crisis in making his comment, Russia — the Syrian government’s most powerful supporter — seized on it as a way of proposing international control of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal.

A senior State Department official, who was traveling on the plane with Kerry en route home from London, where he made the remarks in a news conference, said the Russians had previewed their proposal with the secretary of state before going public.

After Kerry’s news conference, conducted with William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, Kerry talked by phone for 14 minutes with Lavrov on the plane, the official said.

The reactions appeared to reflect a broad international desire to de-escalate the atmosphere of impending confrontation even as President Barack Obama was lobbying heavily at home to garner congressional endorsement of a military strike.

Kerry’s suggestion — and the Russian and Syrian response — also seemed to represent the first possible point of agreement over how to address the chemical weapons issue that has threatened to turn the Syria conflict, now in its third year, into a regional war.

But the Russian and Syrian responses, coming just as the White House was stepping up efforts to win congressional and international support for a military strike, were dismissed by some as either a delaying tactic or a ploy to encourage opposition to Obama’s plans for a strike.

A top White House national security official, Tony Blinken, later suggested to reporters in Washington that the Obama administration was not dismissing the idea of an internationally supervised sequestering of Syria’s chemical munitions as a possible solution, but that it remained skeptical.

“We’re going to take a hard look at this,” Blinken said. “We’ll talk to the Russians about it.”

Asked at a news conference in London if there were steps the Syrian president, Bashar Assad, could take to avoid a U.S.-led attack, Kerry said, “Sure, he could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week — turn it over, all of it, without delay and allow the full and total accounting.”

But Kerry immediately dismissed the possibility that Assad would or could comply, saying, “But he isn’t about to do it, and it can’t be done.”

However, in Moscow, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, who was meeting with Syria’s foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, said in response that Russia would join any effort to put Syria’s stockpile of chemical weapons under international control and ultimately destroy them.

Lavrov appeared at a previously unscheduled briefing only hours after Kerry made his statement in London, taking Kerry’s comments as a way to suggest a possible compromise.

“We don’t know whether Syria will agree with this, but if the establishment of international control over chemical weapons in the country will prevent attacks, then we will immediately begin work with Damascus,” Lavrov said at the Foreign Ministry. “And we call on the Syrian leadership to not only agree to setting the chemical weapons storage sites under international control, but also to their subsequent destruction.”

Al-Moallem said later in a statement that his government welcomed the Russian proposal, Russia’s Interfax News Agency reported, in what appeared to be the first acknowledgment by the Syrian government that it even possessed chemical weapons. The Syrian government has historically neither confirmed nor denied possessing such weapons.

In quick succession, the idea of sequestering Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile was also endorsed by Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron; the U.N. secretary-general, Ban Ki-moon; and France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius. Ban said he might propose a formal resolution to the Security Council, which has been paralyzed over how to deal with the Syria crisis from the beginning.

Cameron told lawmakers in London that if Syria handed over its chemical weapons arsenal for destruction under international supervision, “it would be hugely welcome,” news agencies in Britain reported.

Fabius of France, whose government has joined with the Obama administration in pressing for military intervention, also welcomed the Russian proposition, but said Assad must “commit without delay” and place all chemical munitions under “international control.” In a statement, Fabius also called for a Security Council resolution that would carry the threat of “firm consequences” for noncompliance.

In Washington, Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich., who heads the House Intelligence Committee, expressed cautious support for Lavrov’s response.

“Just the fact the Russians have moved tells me having this debate on military action is a having a positive outcome,” Rogers said in a telephone interview.

The Obama administration had discussed the idea of some sort of ultimatum that might be presented to Assad to give up his chemical weapons stocks. But the idea seemed to have many problems. Among the unknowns were how would the stocks be secured and transported, and how would inspectors ensure that stocks were not hidden.

Kerry had said Sunday that he hoped to get additional nations within 24 hours to sign on to a statement calling for a strong international response. And Lavrov’s proposal may have been intended to thwart such an outcome.

Lavrov went into more detail than Kerry’s suggestion — which Kerry’s spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, described as more of a rhetorical exercise than a proposal.

Lavrov said Russia was proposing that Syria join the international Convention on Chemical Weapons, which bars the manufacture, stockpiling and use of poison gas.

Syria is 1 of 7 nations that are not parties to the treaty, the others being Angola, Egypt, Israel, Myanmar, North Korea and South Sudan.

“We are counting on a quick, and I hope, positive answer,” Lavrov said Monday evening as Kerry flew back to Washington to attend briefings on Capitol Hill intended to build support for a military response to Syria’s use of such weapons.